By David Woo, HANC Board

HANC’s June meeting focused on this year’s budget fight. We were joined by Tim Redmond with 48Hills and Anya Worley-Ziegmann with the People’s Budget Coalition. The discussion revolved around this year’s nearly $800 million budget deficit, and the priorities of San Francisco communities versus those of Mayor Daniel Lurie and City Hall.

Tim discussed some of the realities of the budget, how even though San Francisco has a $13 billion budget the Board of Supervisors really only has control over a fraction of that money (and much of that fraction is dedicated to the police). He showed (with info from the People’s Budget Coalition) how in this budget cycle, many of the services that the Mayor is proposing to cut serve everyday people. He also demonstrated that the amount of money that millionaires in San Francisco are saving from the Trump tax cuts is the same amount as our deficit.

Anya discussed how the budget process works, what supervisors are on the Budget Committee, and the large influence of Mayor Lurie in our city’s strong mayor system. She described the People’s Budget Coalition, representing over 150 nonprofits, unions, and community groups, that has been advocating against cuts to critical city services and organizations. She outlined parts of the Mayor’s current budget that seeks to cut 1,400 jobs with 100 layoffs, cut funding to immigrant services, food security, and gender and legal services, and the Mayor’s attempt to take control of voter mandated Prop C homelessness funds.

The meeting concluded with the point that rather than continuing to focus our economic policy on the whims of tech, finance, and real estate, we need to be thinking now about new revenue solutions to fund the city, such as taxing the enormous wealth that exists here.